9th Cavalry Regiment Buffalo Soldiers Patch

We Can, We Will is the motto of the 9th Cavalry, a regiment constituted on July 28, 1866, and organized that September 21 in Louisiana as one of the two Black cavalry regiments the Army raised after the Civil War. Its troopers became known as the Buffalo Soldiers. They rode the frontier through the Indian Wars, and the crossed arrows in the regiment's heraldry still recall that service. In 1898 the 9th fought beside Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders at Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill in Cuba. Few regiments in the Army carry a longer record under one number.

After Cuba came the Philippines, and the regiment was at Camp Stotsenburg by June 1919. It sailed from Manila in October 1922 and reached Fort Riley, Kansas, that November, where it spent the next eighteen years as the support and demonstration regiment of the Cavalry School. It joined the 2nd Cavalry Division on October 10, 1940, went to North Africa, and was inactivated there on March 7, 1944, its troopers sent to fill other units. In Vietnam the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry was the air cavalry squadron of the 1st Cavalry Division, reorganized at Fort Benning on July 1, 1965, and flying UH-1 Huey and AH-1 Cobra helicopters in Red, White and Blue teams. The Headhunters earned three Presidential Unit Citations before the squadron was inactivated on February 26, 1973. Today the 1st Battalion, 4th Squadron and 6th Squadron of the 9th Cavalry serve with the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

The patch measures 3.5 inches by 3.5 inches with a cut edge that follows the outline of the design. A rider in a feathered war bonnet sits a rearing horse, one hand lifting a rifle high over his head, all of it stitched in cavalry gold with fine black outlining. Behind him is a blue field shaped like a cross with notched arms, trimmed in gold. The horse's head, forelegs and tail break past the edge of the blue, so the patch has the silhouette of a horseman in motion rather than a plain shield. It has an iron-on backing and sews on just as well if you want it permanent.

The Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th served on the frontier at a time when the Army gave them the hardest country and the fewest comforts, and they built a record that the regiment still cites. At Fort Riley the 9th taught horsemanship to the officers who would lead the mounted Army. In Vietnam, Headhunters crews flew scout and gunship missions for the 1st Cavalry Division across the Central Highlands and beyond. Through all of it the number stayed the same. Anyone who wore the 9th on his uniform, at San Juan Hill or Fort Hood, belongs to the same line.

It fits a shadow box with a Buffalo Soldier photograph or a 1st Cavalry Division patch, or the vest you wear to a squadron reunion. It also makes a good gift for a son or grandson whose family served in the 9th. Blue and gold, and a rider with his rifle up.